Israel Building New Weapon To Deal With Hamas’ Gaza Tunnel Threat

Israel is building a massive underground barrier on the border with the Hamas-run Gaza strip in order to prevent the Islamist terror group from expanding its network of terror tunnels under the border.

The project, which will reportedly cost $833 million, includes the construction of a huge underground wall complete with sensors dozens of meters deep into the ground.

The barrier above the ground will reach a height of six meters, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced this week.

IDF Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir told reporters Wednesday that the Israeli army is taking into account that the construction of the barrier will lead to a renewed confrontation with Hamas, since the terror organization would want to prevent the construction of the wall because it will deprive the Islamist terrorists of the only weapon that Israel really fears.

“I think the other side will have to re-evaluate the situation in view of the barrier’s construction,” Zamir said. “If Hamas chooses to go to war over the barrier, it will be a worthy reason (for the IDF) to go to war over — but the barrier will be built.”

In order to finish the project quickly, 1000 workers, many of them African refugees seeking asylum, will be working 24-hour shifts on roughly 40 sites along the border.

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The IDF expects that the construction of the barrier will not only prevent the building of new terror tunnels, but that it will also eliminate existing tunnels which Hamas has constructed since the fighting in the summer of 2014, when the IDF destroyed all known terror tunnels under the border with Gaza.

To realize this goal, the Israeli army is using a giant pneumatic drilling machine that crushes all obstacles on its path. Meanwhile, the area that has been drilled will be filled with bentonite, a mineral that turns into an a vicious adhesive after contact with water.

In this fashion, the IDF will be able to detect new tunnels, because the adhesive substance will spread into holes that could be new Hamas-built tunnels.

In addition to the barrier along Israel’s border with Gaza, the IDF will construct an underwater barrier a few miles into the Mediterranean Sea, most likely in northern Gaza in the vicinity of the coastal city of Ashqelon in southern Israel.

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Zamir showed reporters photo evidence of new tunnel shafts built by Hamas, which is abusing foreign aid meant for the rehabilitation of Gaza after the devastating war in 2014.

The IDF believes that Hamas has already built 12 new tunnels with concrete that was supposed to help build new houses.

The Sunni terror organization is diverting most of the concrete it receives from foreign sponsors via Israel to the tunnel projects, and uses houses of Gazan families to conceal the entrances to the tunnels, Zamir said.

He warned that these houses will become legal targets for the Israeli Air Force in the “next round of conflict.”

“From our point of view, at a time of emergency, these houses will become targets. Anyone who happens to be in a house that has an underground infrastructure is putting his life in danger. We aim to turn it into a death trap,” Zamir said.

“If Hamas thinks it has immunity by building a military infrastructure in a civilian environment – it’s wrong,” he added.

The underground barrier will also be extended to the first stretch of Israel’s border with Egypt, the Israeli news site Yediot Acharonot reported on Tuesday.

This stretch of the barrier will be just two-miles long until it reaches the rocky bottom of the Sinai desert in Egypt. It is meant to prevent Islamic State affiliate Waliyat Sinai from building the same type of terror tunnels Hamas is using.

The ISIS branch in Egypt has already launched several terror attacks against Israeli targets and is expected to turn its weapons on the Jewish state as soon as it seizes full control over the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.